Ten people were tried before the Paris correctional court for having disseminated or relayed on the internet insults and rumors concerning the wife of Emmanuel Macron, notably about her alleged transgender identity.
The court noted an “intention to harm the plaintiff.” Ten people were convicted this Monday, January 5, by the Paris correctional court for online harassment of Brigitte Macron. They were found guilty, as explained during the deliberations by the court president Thierry Donard, of having “published or relayed” in “malicious, degrading and insulting” terms rumors about the gender of the wife of the President of the Republic as well as remarks about her “alleged pedophilia,” the couple with a 24-year age difference having met when she taught theatre at Emmanuel Macron’s high school in Amiens (Somme).
In detail, eight of the ten defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to eight months with a suspended sentence. One defendant who was absent from this highly publicized trial was handed a six-month prison sentence. As for the last defendant, he received only a sensitization course and a fine, to which his nine co-defendants were also sentenced: thus all must, at their own expense, attend a training course on “respect for people in the digital space” and pay a joint fine of 10,000 euros.
Brigitte Macron wants to set an example
Only two of the ten defendants, aged 41 to 65 and from across France, were present at the deliberations. The cyberbullies deemed the most influential on social networks, described as “instigators” during the trial by the prosecutor Hervé Tétier, were sentenced with the heaviest suspended terms: eight months for writer Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, alias Zoé Sagan, six months for the medium Amandine Roy and the gallery owner Bertrand Scholler. The three were banned from using their social media accounts for six months. “What matters are the training courses and the suspension of the accounts,” welcomed Me Jean Ennochi, Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, at the end of the deliberations.
Absent from the trial, Brigitte Macron had explained to investigators, when filing the complaint in late August 2024, that the rumor portraying her as a transgender woman had “a very strong impact” on her entourage and on herself, noting that her grandchildren heard people say that “their grandmother is a man.” In front of the court, her daughter Tiphaine Auzière confirmed the impact of this worldwide misinformation on her mother’s health, “constantly on the alert” in the face of the ongoing questioning of her “identity.” And the accused woman stressed again, this Sunday on the 8 p.m. TF1 news: “I fight, all the time. I want to help teenagers fight against harassment. But if I do not (…) set an example, it will be difficult.”
Transgender identity and pedophilia…
On her X account, now suspended, Zoé Sagan (41) had described the 24-year gap between the Macrons as a “sexual crime” and “pedophilia endorsed by the state.” Amandine Roy (51) was the author of a four-hour viral video, published in 2021 and since removed, claiming that Brigitte Macron had never existed and that her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, would have taken her identity after changing gender. Convicted of defamation in September 2024 (in another trial), she was acquitted on appeal on July 10. The First Lady, who appealed to the Court of Cassation with her brother, had explained that this video made with Natacha Rey – who does not appear in this trial – had largely contributed to amplifying the rumor.
Absent from this cyberharassment trial, Xavier Poussard, whose case was finally separated because he lives in Milan, is presented as the other major instigator of this worldwide misinformation. The author of the bestseller Becoming Brigitte (“Becoming Brigitte”), he teamed up with the American influencer Candace Owen against whom the presidential couple filed lawsuits in the United States this summer. The 36-year-old conspiracy podcaster indeed published a series of videos based on Xavier Poussard’s book whose virality gave a global echo to the transphobic rumor. Several defendants judged in Paris relayed his publications, notably a manipulated Time magazine cover presenting Brigitte Macron as “Man of the Year.” Most of the defendants had expressed surprise at having to justify posts that were “satirical,” invoking freedom of expression or the right to inform in the face of a “hidden” truth.
